No.2924
Culture, as an ecosystem, exists bound by soft laws (forces, distinct objects, attributes, space), stemming from collective general tendencies of human minds (association, reason, desire) and their material conditions. Barring extreme circumstances, the most important factor to determine a given culture was its past state, and simple directional movements sped forwards (trends).
What counts as "culture"? Culture includes language, what logic is deemed acceptable, what values are instilled, technology, division of labor, social organisation and power structure, artistic language, symbolism, accepted behavior and most of everything in a humans living experience that is shared between people.
For the sake of analysis, I will focus two of the most powerful forces. Namely, pleasure and reason. Pleasure, I use vaguely to mean the range of experiences between love, fulfillment, comfort, happiness, joy, ecstacy, physical pleasure, temptation and all the other dopamine, oxytocin or seratonin assocated emotion. Reason, meanwhile, I will take to be constructive thought mostly limited to the prefrontal cortex, but more specifically, abstract and rational thinking about issues, without significant intetference from substances or emotional centers.
Historically, culture used to be bound to tradition. Tradition seen as What Was/Is/Will be. Increasingly, it is unbound and moving.
The principle cause of this liberation was culture, and the material conditions of the Enlightenment in Europe. After a long, regressive dark age in the continent, the excess development predicated on the feudalist model led to excess, while the aims of the elite increasingly emphasized knowledge for its own sake, or for the sake of God or whatever. One could argue a number of causes, but it is worth mentioning they were self-compounding and mostly material, technological and finally cultural, not ethnic. Cultural ego loves to assume good aspects of ones own culture are indicative of the whole, and bad aspects of others, which is naive at best.
Knowledge for its own sake, or for the sake of an abstract "good", is an exceedingly contagious idea in the right psycho-socio-cultural spaces. Necessarily higher on the ladder of needs is self-fulfillment, which would be the necessary level, along with identities around abstract truth and ability to make discovery.
Rapidly, it catalized into a new culture in it of itself. Born with barriers on what to and not to question, this scientific culture systemically dismissed them. A new prestige was born, and thus a class marker for the elites was education. With the elites being educated, the lower classes emulates, or, the elites arranged fit to "culture" the masses.
This process was not instant, not gradualist nor simply punctuated equilibrium. Instead it was a series of small to large punctuated equilibria, (i.e. moments of small changes and large changes) that built ontop of themselves over time.
Tradition, as the overarching factor of hegemony (the culture of the elites, power holders or the culture leaders) died. "God is dead" for all practical purposes. Religion is a part of tradition, and may or may not be the part responsable for guiding or determining someones long term or short term life decisions and activities. Regardless, the range of possibilities was vastly widening, and old constraints were being broken.
Simultaneously, technology was working from the other side. New possiblities were being made, and continuous improvements and innovations being made to all aspects of life (food, furniture, lighting, mass media).
The feudal system was collapsing. There was not enough reason for its existence. A reason, notably, only ever being needed in times of stress to that system. The people were grasping for a different story, and luckily, the up and coming bourgeoisie had a better one; capitalism.
Capitalism offered a new ecosystem, a new cultural grounds for existence. Capitalism is a system of ownership, however the product of that system produced more competion and subsequent "innovation" on the consumer side. But what gets people to buy?
I will skip to the present day. Forces gently against eachother intially, made into a violent dialectic between pleasure and reason in the consumer. The broad mechanics being generalised and applied to optimize each product to maximize total profit. Made possible by technology, unconstrained by tradition (barring the boundries of law, set up as the culture's backlash through the State), and increasingly winning over reason.
The only human faculty in relation to the rest of life on earth that is more striking than our ability to reason is our ability to obfuscate our own and live with an excuse.
More pleasure (reward, comfort and lack of difficulty) has a cascade of effects on the psyche. Historically it has been in a constrained state, with reason, but now both are unleashed, the present system has a clear preference.
But your life is a system, too. What is its tendency?
In my opinion, given the leviathan that is the non-logical part of our brains (and to give it credit its why were aren't completely purposeless, though also allowing us to see a negativity in the universe) the only rational beginning to interact with it is forgiveness.
Because the leviathan was never "wrong", it is being pointed in the wrong direction (towards shallow pleasures built for somebody elses profit); blinded by the noise (for profit media and related services) and sedated (simple carbohydrates, psychoactives, lies). It was, pre-historically, meant to be guided by and to point in the right direction our rational minds. Now that we've got our rational minds back (partially) from tradition, why not get the leviathan back on our side?
Is the leviathan simply only pleasure? No, the leviathan is the non-rational. However, the leviathan is respondible for our pleasure seeking, and when made opposed to our rational minds you best be assured its going to try and use its full weight (barring shame). What this stands as in comparison to my brief analysis is the synthesis of pleasure and reason (a far out societal goal, but a possible personal one).
Happy communism-anarchism
ALXR 001
fuck i should have made the dialectic between reason and animalistic nature or whatever and then id be able to talk about the emotional manipulation of reels and other medium fuck me